Marijuana Use More Common in Pregnant Women with Morning Sickness

A recent article published in JAMA Internal Medicine raises concerns regarding the increasing use of marijuana in pregnant women. According to data derived from two small surveys, women reported using marijuana to alleviate morning sickness, also known as nausea and vomiting in pregnancy (NVP). An epidemiologic study carried out in Hawaii, 4735 pregnant women (2009-2011) who self-reported their marijuana use during pregnancy; use of marijuana was more common among those with (3.7%) versus without (2.3%) self-reported severe NVP.

Young-Wolff and colleagues analyzeddata from a large California health care system with standard universal screening for prenatal marijuana use via self-report and urine toxicologic tests from 2009-2016. NVP was identified using ICD codes in the medical record. In this analysis which included over 220, 000 pregnancies, the prevalence of prenatal use of marijuana was 5.3%, according to self-report or urine testing.

Marijuana use was more common in pregnancies with severe nausea and vomiting (11.3%) and mild NVP (8.4%) than in pregnancies without nausea and vomiting (4.5%). After multivariable adjustment, women with severe NVP were nearly four times as likely to use marijuana, and those with mild symptoms were over twice as likely to use marijuana compared to women without nausea and vomiting.